/ David Davis - Bull****er Extraordinaire!

You have to admire the front of this guy, repeatedly telling Parliament that detailed assessment of various sectors have been undertaken, before turning round and admitting to select committee that it was all rubbish, and government have actually done none of it!

Do you think he knows what the assessments would say (were they to exist, in some form) and therefore is simply pretending that no due diligence has been done on the biggest economic decision this government will ever take?

> Do you think he knows what the assessments would say (were they to exist, in some form) and therefore is simply pretending that no due diligence has been done on the biggest economic decision this government will ever take?

David Davis has no formal due diligence because he can't find experts willing to write a report that agrees with his views. If he could get formal assessments that backed up his arguments he would have a room full of them.

Well he is just stating what has been obvious for some time, we know there is no strategy.

It’s easy to blame the government but they are not the only culprit. People, overall, don’t know what they want from brexit, or want things that they were promised but are materially impossible, parliament doesn’t know, and government doesn’t know either.

If you thought PMQ was a joke in the first place, just watch today’s PMQ. We are reaching new lows.

Essentially the referendum was a farce, the government’s handling of it a farce. And the state of the politics in this country is quite dismal. The rest of the world watches bemused.

One can just hope someone sensible will come along, with sufficient leadership to either scrap the whole thing or fudge it. No-one in sight though.

> It’s easy to blame the government but they are not the only culprit. People, overall, don’t know what they want from brexit, or want things that they were promised but are materially impossible, parliament doesn’t know, and government doesn’t know either.

The public gets what the public wants...

> Essentially the referendum was a farce, the government’s handling of it a farce. And the state of the politics in this country is quite dismal. The rest of the world watches bemused.

> One can just hope someone sensible will come along, with sufficient leadership to either scrap the whole thing or fudge it. No-one in sight though.

I genuinely believe that fewer and fewer people really think it's a good idea. At some point in the next 6 months, after a bit more omnishambles, my hope is that there'll be enough polling that shows the tide has turned sufficiently and a few cautious MPs will start calling openly for a re-think on the whole thing. If they survive the inevitable howls from the Express etc. then a few more from remainer seat MPs will pile in and then Labour would look daft not to call for a re-think.

Maybe I'm too optimistic but there just seem to be way too many people who either don't want it to happen or haven't the stomach to make it happen for it to still actually happen.

> I genuinely believe that fewer and fewer people really think it's a good idea.

Not according to the balance of the polling. There's been, if anything, a tiny shift towards Remain but we're basically still wavering around 50/50 (based on Radio 4's PM today and a quick bit of googling polls myself). Hard to believe from the way the negotiations seem to be verifying all the worst predictions of "project fear" but I think everyone's just becoming more entrenched in their original beliefs. The only thing everyone can agree on is that the government are cocking it up.

> Not according to the balance of the polling. There's been, if anything, a tiny shift towards Remain but we're basically still wavering around 50/50 (based on Radio 4's PM today and a quick bit of googling polls myself). Hard to believe from the way the negotiations seem to be verifying all the worst predictions of "project fear" but I think everyone's just becoming more entrenched in their original beliefs. The only thing everyone can agree on is that the government are cocking it up.

Therein lies the problem with polling. Nobody likes admitting their mistakes even to themselves; cognitive dissonance and all that. But given the option to rethink, in the privacy of the ballot box and with another few months of uncertainty I'm not so sure if there wouldn't be a different result.

The problem is that no major party can openly start to question 'the will of the people' until it's clear that the shift is being made. Once it starts to happen there could certainly be some snowball effect going on.

Labour can't show leadership until it can lead on anti-Brexit stance and it's not time for that yet.

The sad truth is that strong and stable leadership is the last thing any of us remainers want for now. There's also the matter of the fact that there is no real negotiation to be had. Ramble, ramble

Yes...it is trying to get people to change their minds.
It is hard to see how this can be achieved, but perhaps Hilary Benn's approach - 13.38 post - has something to comend it.
There is a degree of urgency in this, as every week that goes by we seem to inflict more damage on ourselves...

> Why pick on David Davis? It seems they’re all comically inept: “Hammond confirms cabinet has not had a specific discussion about the final Brexit outcome it wants, the so-called “end state”.

That's not inept, that's delaying the inevitable until it's unavoidable. It really should be criminal in this case but you can see why nobody wants to mention the elephant in the room even as it gets progressively drunker, hornier and ever more intent on wrecking the place. They can't agree on anything so they don't discuss it, clinging to power no matter how directionless is the name of the game for now.
jk

> Is that a leaked transcript of the real impact assessments? In full.

I've been told by people, who were involved, that impact assessments have been done for at least a number of major economic sectors and David Davis is fully aware of the contents. The above sounds like a pretty fair summary of their findings if we leave the Customs Union and Single Market but don't get a reasonable and detailed deal agreed by June 2018.